A PUB landlord put his life on the line when he leapt into a flooded river to save a woman from drowning.

Dafydd Williams managed to reach the woman and held onto her with one hand until both were pulled to safety by a rescue team.

And now the 33-year-old has been presented with a Chief Fore Officer’s Commendation for saving the woman’s life.

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Mr Williams, landlord of the King’s Arms by the River Ouse on King’s Staith, York, swung into action when the woman jumped into the swollen river outside his pub last June.

“I was looking out of the window and she just disappeared,” he said. “I asked a friend to ring 999 and I put on waders which we keep at the pub.”

He then grabbed a life ring and ran along the staith as the woman was swept downstream. He jumped on to a cruise boat pontoon and, up to his waist in water and holding on to a rail with one hand, grabbed the woman with the other hand as she was floating past.

He then hung to her until firefighters arrived in a boat, and rescued the pair of them.

Chief Fire Officer Nigel Hutchinson said the pub landlord had been in a cold and tired state when the firefighters arrived, and the woman had been in grave danger.

He added: “He put his own life at risk by entering the fast-flowing Ouse in flood to rescue the woman. Without his actions, she would almost certainly have drowned.”

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